


they say quitters never win (but we walk the plank on the sinking ship)

by pippinskettles



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Arguing, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Making Up, Post-Season/Series 03, Rated for swearing, canon typical pop-culture references, demetri is a recovering little shit, eli is a man of few words, this is set in early 2019 and it is very important to the author, will add characters and tags when i post more chapters!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29857788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pippinskettles/pseuds/pippinskettles
Summary: five times eli and demitri didn't hold hands on purpose and one time they dideli is on a guilt quest for redemption and demetri is trying to not be manipulative about it. intricate rituals ensue.
Relationships: Demetri & Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz, Demetri/Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	they say quitters never win (but we walk the plank on the sinking ship)

**Author's Note:**

> like every other person in this fandom i didn't buy demetri instantly forgiving hawk over a short apology. i also didn't quite buy hawk stopping apologizing at that. 
> 
> title is from fall out boy's "don't you know who i think i am?". i have an entire playlist of just fob songs with the "i have some unresolved beef with my best friend and im also in love with them" vibe, which is, let's admit it, exactly what the binary brothers are about

“Wait, wait, what goes after the bump, again?” Eli stood in front of him repeating the movements of a secret handshake they were trying to come up with in the last ten minutes. Or at least the part that he remembered after at least half a dozen attempts to perfect it. “Clap, clap, bump–”

“Clap, clap, hook! Then bump,” Demetri repeated going through the motions along with his best friend, this time twice as slow as it’s actually supposed to be. He was starting to get annoyed but that was such a baseline emotion to him that he quickly and easily brushed it off. For now.

Nothing was really worth it fighting over lately, especially the little things. Everything was going more or less without any bumps in the road – save for the handshake move they couldn’t get right – since they patched it up with Eli. Not that their fight was Demetri’s fault in the first place, although he did have his moments, but the last thing he wanted to do was guilt trip Eli into _letting_ him win. But not just any win. It certainly didn’t apply to their training; they were sparring together and practicing good sportsmanship in an environment where it was appropriate. Demetri knew Eli had no qualms about kicking his ass in the dojo, he wouldn’t feel guilty about that. But outside karate? It took him a while to catch on but soon he started noticing how they only seemed to watch shows and movies Demetri wanted to watch (his taste is impeccable but that was getting ridiculous), never played the basketball hoops at the arcade (Eli was a crazy good shot but Demetri was always petrified by basketballs bouncing off of each other), even ordered pineapple pizza once. He couldn’t take advantage of Eli like that. Even if that meant having to watch that piece of hot garbage of a show The Magicians because Eli still liked the ongoing season 4 and needed someone to bounce his theories off of (which was infinitely better than arcade basketball anyway). 

So he decided on trying to get under Eli’s skin through their mutual competitiveness. 

It wasn’t working so far.

“I got it. I got it!” Eli stopped in his tracks and exhaled through the nose. Was he applying Miyagi-Do techniques to this? That’s new. “Okay, let’s do it again.”

  
_clap_  


Demetri looked at their hands snapping in different directions

  
_clap_  


and then coming together,

  
_hook_  


fingers interlaced.

He looked back up at Eli, mind blank. He only managed to perform one confused blink before Eli’s hand yanked him forward bumping their shoulders together, as it was supposed to go according to directions. The ones Demetri came up with, no less.

“Dude! You know you can’t bitch at me for messing up the sequence and then forget it yourself,” they pulled apart, Demetri’s hand still hooked with Eli’s. “Let’s just get rid of this dumb hook and go straight to bump.”

“Which leaves three moves and makes it _basically_ waltz,” Demetri deadpanned squinting. “Didn’t know you were such a dancer, Eli.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to dance with you since you keep making things unnecessarily complicated for everyone!”

“Its convolutedness is a failsafe mechanism,” said Demetri pointedly. He chose to leave the topic of dancing out not really knowing why that even was the comeback he went with. “Say, an evil clone of either of us appears. Besides the obvious threats and attempts to appeal to emotions — which is just an excruciatingly stupid approach I hope my evil clone wouldn’t even adopt, I am _so much_ better than that, — that’s one of the ways to figure out who is who.“

He frowned and dropped Eli’s hand mid air. Eli stepped back in surprise.

“But I guess I’ve already met your evil doppelgänger,” he looked at nothing in particular to his left and smirked. “Unfortunately, my hands were a little full at that moment–”

The smirk grew into a chuckle that was growing into a snicker which Demetri covered up with his hand. Eli was staring at him completely silent, probably not knowing how to react to Demetri’s verbal transgressions. Tips of his ears assumed the color of his stupid mohawk and his face mostly resembled the one he wore at the end of Moon’s party, minus the murderous rage. 

Embarrassment? Provided he guessed correctly, Demetri wasn’t doing a good job not guilt tripping Eli when he specifically reserved this activity to get rid of that unhealthy habit. He just couldn’t help poking fun at the word choice and their history of occasional villainy pointed at each other. 

“You know, I spent a lot of time trying to somehow justify it from your point of view,” Eli’s face didn’t move a muscle as Demetri attempted to deescalate what he’s gotten them into. “Like, Magneto was just trying to protect mutants and all. And as much as he was the main character, Charles was collateral in Erik’s way.”

Eli’s head flinched forward and he blinked rapidly a few times. Did he never talk to Demetri in his life? That was a simple analogy specifically catered to him with one of his favorite movies.

Eli spoke up, at last.

“So… If we talk X-Men: First Class, that makes you Professor X in this analogy?” he raised one eyebrow in what appeared to be amusement. “You’re giving yourself too much credit.”

Demetri beamed at having Eli talk back to him. Mayhaps that one was on purpose. His words didn’t normally have any intent behind them, but when they did it was done in complete earnestness.

“As if comparing you to Magneto isn’t,” he observed, crossing his arms and shaking his head in mock contempt. Although he guessed it was more on point that he previously let on. Dammit, the fridge brilliance of his mind.

“Magneto was right, after all,” Eli stepped back into Demetri’s space, staring at him with his head tilted back a little to make up for the height difference. Demetri stood there, frozen, forced to hold his gaze. _This_ was a competition.

He looked away quickly.

Eli snorted.

“Jerk,” Demetri shoved his shoulder lightly, defeated and relieved.

“Let’s do the handshake again.”

**Author's Note:**

> yeah yeah i know it wasn't a complicated handshake but blocking is a bitch and a means to an end *shrugs*
> 
> please leave a comment if you have anything to say to me!


End file.
